ABSTRACT
As most other EU countries, Hungary implemented severe lockdown measures during the pandemic, including the closure of the schools and childcare facilities. This meant that for several months a vastly increased volume of childcare had to be supplied by individual households without much institutional help. In the end of May 2020, we conducted a representative survey in Hungary to find out how the pandemic affected the gendered division of these childcare duties. We found that on average, in relative terms, men have increased their contributions at roughly the same rate (by 35 percent) as women. But given that women had been doing a lot more childcare work before the pandemic, in absolute terms, women’s contributions grew significantly more than men’s and the gap between men and women has increased in absolute work hour terms. This was particularly so among a specific group of women: middle class, highly educated city-dwellers. Our data suggest that in Hungary the pandemic increased gender inequality the most among the highest educated.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Details on variable construction can be found in the supplementary material.
2 Only those respondents have valid value on the home office variable who were either worked at home during the effect of lockdown measures or worked at the workplace or on the premises. Those respondents who were legally still employed during the effect of lockdown measures but were on a paid or unpaid forced leave have missing values on the home office variable.
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Notes on contributors
Éva Fodor
Éva Fodor is a sociologist teaching in the Department of Gender Studies at the Central European University.
Anikó Gregor
Anikó Gregor works as a sociologist at ELTE University, Budapest, Faculty of Social Sciences. In the academic year of 2019/2020 she was a research fellow at Freie Universität Berlin (Academy in Exile program).
Júlia Koltai
Júlia Koltai is a researcher at the Centre for Social Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences Centre of Excellence and Assistant Professor of Sociology at ELTE University. Currently she is a visiting professor at the Central European University.
Eszter Kováts
Eszter Kováts is a PhD student in Political Science, ELTE University, Budapest.